| Quote: | Originally posted by guy
Thats awesme! How good were the yields?
Ive also found that burining the CuCl2/EtOH soln is more fun and faster! |
Like I said earlier, my best guess is about 55% yield...But considering it used kosher salt and some copper sulfate (which may or may not be easier to
get than hydrochloric acid), I'm quite happy. I tried burning the solution with my first, somewhat ruined batch yesterday and it's pretty damn neat
when it starts to run out of EtOH and the entire thing flares up and turns bright green I figure the old batch is still just fine for pyro mixes or
making "color pinecones/ woodchips, etc." to give as odd, but fascinating gifts. Just soak material of choice in CuCl2 solution (ethanol or otherwise)
and allow to evaporate. When you throw them in a fire, the CuCl2 vapor colors the whole fire bright blue-green...perhaps a more dramatic exaple is to
pour some strong alcohol solution on a paper towel, wring out, crumple up, and throw in the fire (blue-green fireball).
I will repeat several more times as soon as my copper sulfate is finished in the garage (25 of 70g of copper left to dissolve...although I did use a
bit excess) to try to maximize the yield. I am thinking that the very low solubility of sodium sulfate at 0C will be extremely useful. After the 5
minute cooking, I will drop the temperature to 0 using an ice/water/salt bath and filter out the precipitated Na2SO4. At 0, its solubility should be
about 5g per 100ml water...so only @ 5g of sodium and sulfate ions will be left to revert to sodium chloride or copper sulfate when it is dehydrated
completely. Yields should increase considerably
[Edited on 22-12-2006 by UnintentionalChaos]
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
It's nice to see that it all worked out for you.. I've seen so now I
believe
